I co-authored an article with Dr. David B. Ingram about digital technologies and the public sphere: "The Public Sphere as a Site of Emancipation and Enlightenment: A Discourse Theoretic Critique of Digital Communication." This article appear in December 2014 as a chapter in an edited volume, titled: "Re-imagining Public Space: The Frankfurt School in the 21st Century."

With a foreword by Stephen Bronner, this volume edited consists of reflections from contemporary political and social theorists on the concept of public space and what it means in the context of modern political life. The contributors take as their fundamental position the importance of the theorists of the Frankfurt School (Adorno, Benjamin, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Habermas) in laying the foundation for thinking about public space. But the contributors move beyond a historical analysis of these theorists; each contribution offers a new perspective on how to think about public space, how to theorize its implications, and how to construct a theory of democratic political life through political action that takes seriously how politics works itself out in the public space. The contributors come from a variety of scholarly backgrounds but all are in agreement that a democratic politics will not be viable in protecting rights, tolerance and freedom unless it is grounded in a theory that embraces participation in public life, as well as art and protest as democratic action in the public space.

Below you can find an abstract of our article.

"The Public Sphere as a Site of Emancipation and Enlightenment: A Discourse Theoretic Critique of Digital Communication"

Abstract

Habermas claims that an inclusive public sphere is the only deliberative forum for generating public opinion that satisfies the epistemic and normative conditions underlying legitimate decision-making. He adds that digital technologies and other mass media need not undermine – but can extend – rational deliberation when properly instituted. This paper draws from social epistemology and technology studies to demonstrate the epistemic and normative limitations of this extension. We argue that current online communication structures fall short of satisfying the required epistemic and normative conditions. Furthermore, the extent to which Internet-based communications contribute to legitimate democratic opinion and will formation depends on the design of the technologies in question.

We develop our argument in four steps: First, (1) we situate Habermas’s discourse theory of democracy as a response to the crisis of liberal democracy, which asks whether and how the public sphere can remain a site of enlightenment and emancipation in an age of mass media and communications. Second (2), we identify an epistemological deficit in Habermas’s thinking about contemporary communication flows in the public sphere, namely, we show that Habermas does not properly account for the affective dimension of reasoning, thus highlighting the shortcomings of mediated communications. Third (3), we identify a normative deficit in Internet-based communications when considered through Habermas’s discourse-theoretic framework. In particular, we critically examine whether digital media in fact allow for more marginalized voices to enter public discourse, thus democratizing the public sphere, and argue that there are good reasons and good empirical evidence to suggest that this is not the case. We conclude (4) by emphasizing that the design of the technologies under discussion, and hence their social consequences, are not predetermined. Technology is always underdetermined and always embodies specific values. Hence, the design of the Internet itself, and the applications we use through it, begs a public discussion based on democratic values.